3 How the Writings Were Read
To the ordinary visitor to the British Museum, looking at the cuneiform inscriptions—nothing but arrowhead characters variously grouped—it seems wonderful that they should constitute a language, and incredible that they should be read. The question is often asked, “How can we trust the translations put before us? How do we know that they are any more than guesses?” It may be well, therefore, to relate how the key to the lost character was obtained, and how the decipherment proceeded until now the translation of narrative texts can be made with as much certainty as translations from the Hebrew of the Old Testament.
The clue was obtained from the Behistun inscriptions, through the energy of Sir Henry Rawlinson; and the records of the successive steps of the discovery will be found in the Journal of the Asiatic Society, in the Quarterly Review for March 1847, and in such popular works as Mr Vaux’s “Nineveh and Persepolis.” Edwin Norris and others had laboured, and the process of deciphering cuneiform texts was already well advanced when Sir Henry Layard and Mr Rassam discovered such abundant treasures in the mounds on the Tigris. The inscriptions which are now known to record the personal history of Darius, the son of Hystaspes, are almost always in three forms of the cuneiform character, which may be described as Persian, Median, and Assyrian, and were addressed to different races of his subjects. The most extensive monument of the kind is found on a rock escarpment at Behistun, on the frontiers of Persia, a place on the high road from Babylonia to the further east. The rock is almost perpendicular, and rises abruptly from the plain to the height of 1700 feet, an imposing object which must always have attracted the attention of travellers. It was known to the Greeks, who erected on the top of it a temple to Zeus; and it had probably been sacred to Ormazd, the supreme deity of the Persians. High up on the face of this rock, 300 feet above the plain, there are two tablets, one of them containing sculptured figures and nearly a thousand lines of cuneiform character. The sculptured portion of the rock represents a line of nine persons united by a cord tied round their necks, and having their hands bound behind their backs, who are approaching another of more majestic stature, who, holding up his right hand in token of authority, treads on a prostrate body. His countenance expresses the idea of a great king or conqueror, and behind the king stand two guards with long spears in their hands.
The reign of Darius was disturbed by many revolts, and the insurrectionary attempts of many impostors and pretenders. It is these impostors who are represented as prisoners in the sculpture, and over the head of each figure we find his name and description. The first one, the prostrate figure, is “Gomates, the Magian, an impostor,” who said, “I am Bartius, the son of Cyrus; I am the King,” and so on. The inscription is by far the largest and most important record which has been preserved of the greatness of Darius, and of the Persian state and system. The lines over the monarch himself would read in English as follows:—
“I am Darius the king, the great king, the king of kings, the king of Persia, the king of the (dependent) provinces, the son of Hystaspes, the grandson of Arsames, the Achæmenian,” &c.
It will be noticed here how the word king is repeated; as the inscription proceeds the name Darius is repeated also. A German scholar, Professor Grotefend, had observed that such inscriptions generally begin with three or four words, one of which varies while the others do not. He suspected that the word which changes would be the king’s name—as different inscriptions would relate to different kings—and that the other words gave the king’s titles. He felt convinced that a word which was constantly repeated signified “king,” and conjectured that when two kings were mentioned they were probably father and son. Finding that the names of Cyrus and Cambyses would not suit, because no two names in the inscription he was dealing with commenced with the same letter, he tried others. Cyrus and Artaxerxes seemed equally inapplicable, because of their unequal length, the two names he was dealing with being of six letters each. The only names remaining were those of Darius and Xerxes; and these on further comparison appeared to agree so exactly with the characters that he did not hesitate at once to adopt them. Having thus found out more than twelve letters, among which were precisely those composing the royal title, the next business was to give these names their original Persian form, in order that by ascertaining the correct value of each character, the royal title might be deciphered. From the “Zendavesta” of Anquetil du Perron, M. Grotefend found that the Greek form Hystaspes was originally represented in Persian by Gustasp, Kishtasp, or Wistasp. The first seven letters of this name were at once discovered, while a comparison of all the royal titles led him to the conclusion that the three last formed the inflection of the genitive singular, corresponding to the Latin Hystaspis. Thus did Grotefend proceed step by step, his ingenuity and perseverance being beyond all praise. Meantime Sir Henry Rawlinson, although stationed in Persia and cut off in a great degree from the results of European scholarship, was devoting himself with ardour to the study of the Behistun inscription, and making independent progress.
It turned out that of the three forms of arrow-headed character in this class of inscriptions the Persian was the easiest to decipher, being an alphabetic language, and that the other two were not purely alphabetic. Still, a sure clue was obtained, and the key being applied by an increasing number of investigators, the Median and the Assyrian in the course of time yielded up their secrets. At length, in 1857, to put the method of decipherment to a test, the inscription of Tiglath-Pileser I. was submitted to four eminent Assyriologists, namely, Sir H. Rawlinson, Dr Oppert, Mr Fox Talbot, and Dr Hincks, who made translations of it independently, and sent them, under seal, to the secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society. When they were opened and compared it was found that they exhibited a remarkable resemblance to one another, much greater, in fact, than could have been the case if the method of decipherment had not been sound. Since 1857 immense advances have been made, until now, as Dr Sayce confidently declares, it is possible to translate an ordinary Assyrian text with as much ease and certainty as a page of the Old Testament.
[Authorities and Sources:—“Assyrian Discoveries.” By George Smith. “The Chaldean Genesis.” By George Smith. “Ancient History from the Monuments: Assyria.” By George Smith. “Ancient History from the Monuments: Babylonia.” By Rev. Dr A. H. Sayce. “Nineveh and its Remains.” H. A. Layard. “Nineveh and Persepolis.” W. S. W. Vaux. “Guide to the Kouyunjik Gallery.” British Museum. “The Story of the Nations: Assyria.” By Zénaïde A. Ragozin. “The Story of the Nations: Babylonia.” Zénaïde A. Ragozin. “Hibbert Lectures.” Dr A. H. Sayce. “Records of the Past.” “Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology.” Smith’s “Dictionary of the Bible.” “From Under the Dust of Ages.” St Chad Boscawen.]
Footnotes
1 From “Records of the Past.” New Series, vol. ii.
2 See Bishop Butler’s “Sermon on the Character of Balaam.”
3 Rev. H. G. Tomkins argues that he was a Semite, though in close contact with the Hittites.—“Journal of the Anthropological Institute,” November 1889.
4 Major Conder, in the “Journal of the Anthropological Institute,” August 1889.
5 See the authorities given in “Rawlinson’s Historical Illustrations of the Old Testament.”
6 Dyer’s “Pompeii.”
7 Exod. xxix. 22; Levit. vii. 32, viii. 25, ix. 21; Num. xviii. 18.
8 See Sayce’s “Fresh Light from the Monuments,” p. 139.
9 “Records of the Past,” New Series, vol. ii.
10 Brugsch, “History of Egypt,” vol. ii.
11 May it not perhaps have been a new name given to Bubastis, after rebuilding?
12 M. Naville, whose excavations at Tell Basta have shown that Bubastis was a very large city, and a favourite resort of the king and his family, thinks it quite possible that, at the time we are speaking of, the king was at Bubastis and not at Zoan.
13 Gesenius gives the meaning, “rush, reed, seaweed;” and in Exod. ii. 3, Moses is said to have been laid in an ark of souph or reeds.
14 In this paraphrase I render one of the vavs by “then” instead of “and.” This will be allowed me. What will be objected to is the assumption that Lasha is Laish, especially as Lasha contains a different radical, the ayin (לָשַׁע). But the passage in Genesis may give an archaic spelling; and as Lasha signifies “the breaking through of waters,” it is eminently descriptive of the source of the Jordan at Dan. To place Lasha in the south-east of Palestine, as is done in Smith’s “Dictionary of the Bible,” is to charge the description in Genesis with being defective, for how are the limits of a people defined by tracing two sides of an irregular quadrangle?
15 Josephus: “Wars,” iii. 10. § 8.
16 “Twenty-one years’ Work in the Holy Land.”
17 For an account of the “Book of Jasher,” see the “Literary Remains of Emanuel Deutsch.”
18 Little Hermon is really a misnomer for the conical hill of Duhy just north of the Valley of Jezreel. The mention of Tabor and Hermon together in Psalm lxxxix. 12, has misled those who did not realize that Tabor would be in the same line of vision with Mount Hermon, for many observers in the south.
19 See the chapter on Jerusalem.
20 Greek “Akra.”
21 ἡ καθύπερθεν αὐταῖς
22 “Survey Memoirs.”
23 This is Dr Sayce’s improved translation, in “Records of the Past,” Second Series, vol. ii. The inscription has since been cut out and stolen.
24 “Quarterly Statement,” Jan. 1890.
25 Might mean arched, or gibbous, or humped. Conder understands it “rising to a peak.” Q. S. Oct. 1873.
26 “Quarterly Statement,” January 1876.
27 “Wars,” v. 4. 2.
28 “Quarterly Statement,” Jan. 1886.
29 In the Authorised Version it is Meah, in the Revised Version Hammeah. It might be translated Tower of the Hundred.
30 Ezra iv. 16, 20; v. 3, 6; vi. 6, 8, 13; viii. 36.
31 The Nethinim were but servants of the Levites.
32 “Recovery of Jerusalem,” pp. 155–9.
33 Zion is only called Moriah as the hill of vision (2 Chron. iii. 1).
34 The resemblances are better seen in the Hebrew.
35 “Quarterly Statement,” April, 1890.
36 “Quarterly Statement,” Jan.–March 1870.
37 Antiq., vii. 14, 4.
38 Antiq., ix. 10. 4.
39 “Sinai and Palestine,” chap. iii.
40 “Quarterly Statement,” July, 1890.
41 “The Recovery of Jerusalem,” p. 284.
42 “Quarterly Statement,” 1872, p. 116.
43 It would be legitimate to read “by the sheep-pool” instead of “by the sheep-gate.”
44 xv. 11. 5.
45 v. 5. 2.
46 “Sinai and Palestine.”
47 Conder’s “Tent Work.”
48 See a paper by Rev. Charles S. Robinson, in the Century Magazine, November, 1888.
49 Genesis x. 6.
50 Lessing: “Education of the Human Race.”
51 “Journal of the Anthropological Institute,” February, 1889.
52 It is right to say that some writers are not convinced that Nineveh was 60 miles round. They regard Nimroud, Kouyunjik, &c., as so many separate cities.
53 Or Gilgames. (See Academy, Nov. 8th, 1890.)
54 “Records of the Past.” New Series, Vol. i.